The Urban Hermit: A Memoir (Hardcover)

by Sam Macdonald (Author)
Key Phrases: porn shops, rainbow gathering, sock puppet, John Stafford, Army Times, Rob Gould (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
His diet plan wouldn't make it on Oprah, his lifestyle change wouldn’t be touted by Dr. Phil, and Alan Greenspan wouldn’t touch his financial solvency plan with a 10-foot pole. But for MacDonald, the need to retire a mountain of debt and lose a massive amount of weight were essentially one and the same problem. Reasoning that by solving one, he could fix the other, MacDonald decided to eat less and, more importantly, drink less, taking the money he saved on food and alcohol to pay off his creditors. He traded in his shots and beers for boiled lentils and canned tuna. Instead of partying with his college buddies, he paid more attention to his journalism career, traveling around the world and across the country in pursuit of plum, often quirky, assignments. One hundred sixty pounds later, MacDonald found he suddenly had grown up once he stopped going, and growing, out. Outrageous, offbeat, with an infectious can-do optimism, MacDonald offers a dedicated, if slightly demented, approach to self-improvement. --Carol Haggas

Review

"Hilarious and truly bizarre....like a weight-loss manual written by Hunter Thompson or financial planning advice from Charles Bukowski."  --Neal Pollack, author of Alternadad.   "Sam MacDonald is a strong new voice in the field of creative nonfiction. His book tells the compelling story of a man, obsessed with weight loss, haunted by demons, overcoming all obstacles and achieving a significant goal.  It is powerful reading in direct and down-to-earth prose." --Lee Gutkind author, ALMOST HUMAN: Making Robots Think "Raw and brutally honest, Sam McDonald has a way of grabbing you by the throat and demanding that you stay with him on his wild and hilarious romp of self-reinvention.  Read this book for the powerful storytelling, read it for the laughs, read it for the privilege of getting to know a charming new voice--read it for the quiet rumble of hope McDonald so masterfully imbeds within these pages." – Jeanne Marie Laskas, author of Growing Girls: The Mother of All Adventures

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press (November 25, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312376995
• ISBN-13: 978-0312376994
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #440,282 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Enjoyable & Easy Read, December 4, 2008

By	Paul Kronenberg (Brooklyn, New York United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I read The Urban Hermit in a couple of hours and found that Sam MacDonald has a very engaging, honest, funny and captivating style of writing and speaking to the reader. In the introduction, he states that:"I was a big, fat bastard. No excuses. No complaints. That's just the way I was."He was having a good time, drinking, eating and hanging out. Things probably would have continued for another 10 years, had not bills and credit card debt began to get out of hand.From that point, he takes the reader along with him on his journey. I was especially amazed at his ability to stick to a radical change in eating and living, that he devised.Perhaps he didn't have any choice or maybe his inate self-respect made it hard to look for an easy way out. Memoirs often give the opportunity to walk with someone in their shoes. This particular memoir is special because the author is a good guy to hang out with. By the end of the book, I was happy that his hard work had found him with much to be thankful for.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Really Enjoyable Read , December 15, 2008

By	nashvillegirl - See all my reviews

The Urban Hermit is a quick, clever, and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny book. Sam MacDonald is in his late 20s when the life that he's always enjoyed (drinking, hanging out, not really caring about money) comes to a grinding halt when he discovers how much money he owes to the IRS and credit card companies. He decides to try an "urban hermit" plan for month, where he exists on the cheapest food possible (tuna, eggs and lentils) while saving up money to pay his creditors back. Unlike a lot of other memoirs where the author decides to follow some self-improvement plan for a year, MacDonald originally plans on being an urban hermit for only a month. Due to a series of unforeseen events, he ends up being an urban hermit (with some breaks) for many, many months. During that time, we see him travel to Bosnia for a reporting job, bust a porn shop for illegal viewing booths, save a trailer park, travel to a huge hippie gathering in Montana, get what sounds like his first real girlfriend, and various other adventures. MacDonald's style of writing is perfect for a book like this, and he has a way of describing situations and scenes that will make you laugh out loud. The parts where he is attempting to cook the lentils and traveling to Montana in a VW Bus are particularly funny. If you are from Maryland or the DC area, you will enjoy familiar sights being mentioned in the book.

The book around 280 pages, but is a very fast read. MacDonald is a sympathetic, likeable character and his discipline is admirable. One warning - because I know some people don't like this - there is a fair amount of drug use in the book, so if you are squeamish about that, be forewarned. If you don't care, then dive right in!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Extreme, June 15, 2009

By	K. Blaker "khrystyne572" (peoria, az USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I was excited by the Author's concept- 8.00 a day for food- frugality and a weight loss plan, sounds like a great book. Unfortunately, the story involved a lot of dry and boring side plots about his life that had nothing to do with either, especially, when he travels to Bosnia, and to the hippie forest for a story.
The author couldn't have more completely sabotaged his own life, He turned down great job after job, didn't tune in to the relationships he had, did drugs, and was an alcoholic- even if he doesn't admit it. I also had a sneaking suspicion by the end of the book he had also given himself an eating disorder. He would go days without eating claiming he "forgot" or was too "busy" .

A major theme of the book was how much money he was not going to spend on food- at first to pay off his debt, but later, so he could afford to drink. The man would eat gray mushy lentils all week long, and tuna that smelled like cat food so he could have money to drink ( alot!) on the weekend.

In the end, yes, he did lose massive amounts of weight, over 100lbs, and he did pay off his debts, but he couldn't have gone about it in a worse way: it was extreme, unhealthy, and not very well thought out. The author unfortunately tuned a great idea ( how to live bare bones to get out of debt) into a bizarre and twisted concept, that no one dares try. I didn't appreciate the message that was portrayed: the only way to lose weight and get out of debt is extreme suffering, misery and starvation.